Search This Blog

Friday, 15 May 2015

SWAZI PM’s LAND SCAM RESURFACES

News that a company which has the Swaziland Prime
Minister Barnabas Dlamini as a director has sold land it bought from the Swazi
Government for E93,120 in 2005 to a public enterprise for E7.5 million will
rekindle memories of another great land scam he was involved in.

The Times Sunday reported (10 May 2015)
that Fusini Investments (Proprietary) Limited, directed by the Prime Minister
and two others, bought land for E93,120 from government in 2005, which had now
generated a profit of E7.4 million (US$740,000): a profit of more than 800
percent.

The PM’s company sold the land to the Public Service
Pension Fund (PSPF), a public organisation that was established in 1993 for the
management and administration of pensions for government (public sector)
employees.

Prime Minister Dlamini has a history of involvement
in dodgy land deals. In 2011 he and others escaped scrutiny on land deals after
the direct intervention of King Mswati III, the absolute monarch who rules
Swaziland and who hand-picked Dlamini to be his Prime Minister.

They had bought Swazi nation land for themselves at what
a select committee report later called ‘ridiculously cheap’ prices and ‘tantamount
to theft of State property’.

In late
December 2010 it
was revealed that Dlamini, his deputy, and four cabinet ministers were at
the centre of a land purchase scandal.

Dlamini, who had recently claimed to be determined
to stamp out corruptionin
the kingdom, was allowed to buy government-controlled land at half price,
netting himself a E304,000 (US$43,000) saving. Themba Masuku, the Deputy PM and
four ministers each received discounts of between 30 and 50 percent on their
purchases. None of these people were elected to the Swazi Parliament – all were
appointed by the King.

The politicians were allowed to purchase the so-called
‘crown land’ (which is owned by the King on behalf of the Swazi nation) in the
Swazi capital Mbabane without having to compete with other would-be buyers.
They were given the land at below market value, in effect cheating the Swazi
people out of the money.

Two of the ministers who took advantage of this scam
were members of the Swazi Royal Family, which is headed by King Mswati,
sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

The ministers involved were Minister of Natural
Resources and Energy, Princess Tsandzile; Minister of Economic Planning and
Development, Prince Hlangusemphi; Minister of Home Affairs, Chief Mgwagwa
Gamedze; and the Minister of Agriculture, Clement Dlamini.

The Times of
Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper,
reported at the time that the Prime Minister made the biggest killing. He
was allocated ‘a portion of land measuring 6,084 square metres. He paid
E304,000 for the land after it was discounted from the initial price of
E608,000. Effectively, he was granted a 50 percent discount.’

In total the land was sold at about E1 million less
than it was worth, the Times estimated.

Former government ministers also benefited from the
land purchase scandal. They included two members of the Swazi Royal Family.
Prince David received a 50 percent discount on land worth E97,000 allocated to
him. Prince Mbilini also received land, but the exact details of his windfall
were not known, the Times reported.

It was believed that at least nine former ministers were
also given land at discounted prices.

It later
emerged that the Swazi Cabinet, which was hand-picked by the King, approved
the land purchase. This, in effect, meant they approved a plan that allowed
themselves to save hundreds of thousands of emalengeni on the land scam.

It was later
revealed that the Prime Minister and his cronies were not eligible for
discounts on the land because such discounts were only available to poor
people. In Swaziland seven in ten people have incomes of less than US$2 per
day.

Prince
Guduza, Speaker of the Swaziland House of Assembly, rebuked Barnabas Dlamini,
the Prime Minister, for ‘interference of the highest order’, after the Swazi
Parliament decided to set up a seven-member select
committee to investigate the land deals and he called MPs in to see him
‘one-by-one’ to try to get them on his side.

The whole land deal scandal reached
a climax in May 2011 when Dlamini took Prince Guduza, the Speaker of the
House of Assembly, to court to stop a debate about the PM’s irregular land
deals taking place.

He succeeded
in getting a High Court order to stop parliament debating the land issue and
publication of a select committee report into the affair. The House of Assembly
ignored the court and debated anyway.

The select
committee report described the conduct of Lindiwe Dlamini, Minister of
Housing and Urban Development, in the deals as corrupt and treasonous.

The report stated that the authority for land deals
was unconstitutionally taken away from the King’s Office, by Lindiwe Dlamini.

‘The act of the minister was not only
unconstitutional but also seriously undermined the authority and sovereignty of
the office of the Ingwenyama [the King] and was therefore treasonous,’ the
report stated.

That the Minister for Housing and Urban
Development [Lindiwe Dlamini] acted unconstitutionally and with total disregard
of the Crown Land Disposal regulations of 2003, which were promulgated in line
with the provisions of the Crown Land Disposal Act of 1911

That the cabinet ministers concerned
used their positions to gain unfair advantage over other Swazis who had applied
for the land many years ago, by-passing the Crown Land Disposal Committee in
the process.

The Prime Minister and the Minister for Natural
Resources and Energy [Princess Tsandzile] bought the land at ridiculously low
prices. The most disturbing aspect is that the Prime Minister was awarded the
certificate to develop his portion and designs approved without having paid for
the plot and records show that he only did so on February, 22 2011, long after
the Select Committee was appointed.

That the current administration has no
respect for the constitution, as there are many laws that deal with land issues
and until now they have not been aligned with the constitution.

That the Attorney General was never
consulted on this land deal.

That the allocation of land to ministers
through a cabinet decision was unlawful and it smacks of an element of personal
aggrandisement since such action is not supported by any legal instrument.
Receiving a housing allowance on the one hand and on the other hand
apportioning crown land to oneself, is tantamount to theft of State property.

That, as a custodian of State assets and
property, by virtue of its position in government, cabinet had no legal right
to take a collective decision on the allocation of land to ministers, even
worse, that in the process it violated the Constitution, 2005.

In June 2011, King Mswati confirmed his status as an
absolute monarch when
he ordered the House of Assembly and the Senate to stop discussing the land
scandal. He said he would decide what would happen to the land.

The King’s decision to intervene was kept private
and the media were excluded from a joint meeting of the House of Assembly and Senate
at which the King’s dictate was given.

Dlamini then instructed the media in Swaziland to
stop discussing the land deal. He
said, ‘His Majesty said the issue should be put to rest. It means the
matter has been concluded because the King’s word is a command and the law. I
take it that it is over and I hope journalists will take it as having been
concluded.

There is no need for journalists to keep bringing this matter up and
spicing it. It has to be taken out of the news,’

Parliament was informed by both its presiding
officers (Speaker Prince Guduza and Senate President Gelane Zwane) that the
King had ordered the PM to withdraw his court action regarding the land issue
and that the land in question would be returned to government ownership.